Convexity, Topology, Combinatorics and beyond: An international conference

University Of California-Davis, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

The award will support an international workshop on the mathematics at the intersection of convex geometry, topology, and combinatorics, or convex topological combinatorics, for short. This is an important topic because convex geometric and topological techniques have become a main tool in discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science. In fact, convex topological combinatorics has had a impact in application areas such as algorithm design, computer graphics, mathematical programming, solid modeling, and computational biology. At the same time, topology and geometry have benefited from the study of combinatorial structures such as convex bodies, polyhedra, simplicial complexes, geometric graphs, etc., because they appear naturally in relation to important algebraic and topological spaces such as Grassmanians, toric varieties, configuration spaces, and others. This workshop will be the first large international conference in North-America on the topic of convex topological combinatorics. The event intends to bring together top international researchers to discuss developments in these intersecting fields. Besides specific mathematical research, the meeting will increase the cooperation between mathematical schools in the USA and Mexico, both of which have many strong researchers in convex topological combinatorics and a good number of Ph.D students doing research in these topics. Both groups will benefit from the interaction that the conference will bring.